You only say that because you don't need to get travel papers. Many countries, if you want to travel somewhere, you have to explain the purpose, the duration, what you will be doing and then they will decide if you get your papers. Since the TSA gropes few, your chances of being groped are minimal. On the otherhand, with the papers system, you will be harrassed each time you want to go more than 50 miles, even by car.
I don't know what state you live in or railroad you work for, but Amtrak negotiates with each railroad line for right away privileges. Congress mandates that the freight railroads must let Amtrak use their trackage, but does not specify how or when. That's why Amtrak relies on state subsidies along with their federal one. If states want Amtrak to be on time, they give Amtrak money to pay the freight road to bump the priority.
Face it, freight roads are in the business of making money by hauling freight. Amtrak cuts down on their capacity and therefore, unless the line is really underutilized, Amtrak gets low priority and must pay for increased priority. One only has to look at Amtrak's on-time figures over the years and compare it to what the payed out to the freight lines for those years, to see the effect.
While this is a good article and it was wrong of Fox News to sensationalize it, it still misses the point. Even the industry calls these types of games "Adult Games." Why are minors being allowed to purchase them? We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see. Why is it different with interactive media.
I'm not saying adults shouldn't be able to purchase games like this. Heck, even parents can purchase them and give them to their kids. But we have to be honest that the studies, show there is a correlation between violent media and increased aggression. Hopefully, most adults deal with that aggression in rational ways. However, the 12-17 YOs who are the real target of this genre don't have those coping mechanisms (they haven't finished forming in the brain).
Fox News shouldn't have done what they did, but at the same time, there are actual studies showing that violent media does affect children (same with pornography).
But the high speed rail proposals are not planned to be continental systems but specifically intercity, such as the northeast corridor. So we are talking distances similar to Japan, Germany and France, even though the US is significantly larger geographically.
I agree wholeheartedly, however, with your assessment of the freight system. It could be improved, however, if rail was used for all long distance freight and then highway used regionally.
Railroads do not participate in Social Security. As for bailing out corporate pension funds, all I can say is that it was the corporation that raided those funds, not the employees. As for the additional man-hours, well, the plan is for the government to build the infrastructure but private industry run the railroads.
But in the case reported, there was defamation of character (the case was more than I hate my boss). It seems that the department of labor has a different list. Actually, the article states as much in that it is a really big grey area now as to what is permitted and not permitted. Also, the ruling dealt just with social networks, so technically, newspapers, email, blogs, etc. are still up in the air.
I have an idea! Maybe if the TSA stopped molesting people, air travel would be more pleasant, and you wouldn't have to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on passenger trains. Just an idea, I don't live in the States so I'm not sure how much you like being groped by goons with a badge just so that you can visit your parents.
Yeah, we can do like a lot of other countries do, you need travel papers to move from region to region. That would go over really well in the US.
We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.
I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of this economic situation with something actually useful, or at least actually inspiring(like a Mars mission we can just fake if we don't make it).
You mean like the upfront $5billion it costs to build one airport (Denver Int'l cost in 1997) or the $200million it costs to operate just that one airport for a year? In today's money, it would cost about $10billion to build that airport or 20% of the cost for the whole high speed rail proposal. For that same $10billion, 10,000 miles of rail can be put into service.
As for the rest of your example, exactly how did the UPS guy get the goods to deliver to you? They most likely came by long haul truck or air. So, in a few years, when a barrel of oil is over $200 and a gallon of diesel fuel is $8 and jet fuel even more? How much will that local UPS delivery cost you? The only reason rail isn't used more, right now, is because fuel is relatively cheap. Therefore, the efficiency of the delivery system is not a critical factor. Once fuel becomes expensive, then things like rail, which are very efficient per ton moved, will be a no-brainer. Of course, you need to build the infrastructure today, to have it ready for tomorrow.
I hate the assumption that the US having bases overseas is bad for US security. Its great for security, and its money well spent.
I really hope I don't live to see it, but there will be another big war someday, and we better fucking hope we still have massive projectable military might, or we might wind up in a situation that modern 1st world citizens simply cant comprehend.
The poster of the comment didn't actually say to close foreign bases, but do we really need a Coast Guard base in the State of Kansas? And if there is another world war, it won't be fought with today's soldiers or technology (unless its in the near future). It seems the US did a pretty good job of ramping up the military machine for WWII at a time when the country and the military was in shambles. Is there a reason why you would expect they wouldn't be able to do that again?
I agree completely. 75% of our population lives within 50 miles of the coast. There should be high speed rail from Seattle to San Diego (I-5 right of way) and from New York City to Miami. Spending money on rail in the Midwest is asinine.
Unless you want to go to Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver or St. Paul/Minneapolis or even New York to LA.
High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).
High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.
It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.
High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.
An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system. To replace planes you need it to be cheaper, safer, and actually faster. For driving locations you ou get: Boston, New York City, Chicago, and (so I'm told) Washington DC, Portland, and San Fransisco. Is there anywhere else? Where would it replace airports?
That might be true for China, I don't know. I do know that Japan, Germany and France all have airports and seemed to go the high speed rail route. Either they are all stupid, or we are. As for more efficient, air travel for people and freight is one of the least efficient means of travel. It may be the fastest, but it's not very efficient and that's not including the cost of the infrastructure like airports and planes.
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes. So the speed gain would only show up in a few very specific cases, like maybe LA to Vegas.
Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure? Or not spending it at all?
53 billion will provide 53,000 new miles of roads. Exactly where are you going to put those new miles? Could the northeast corrider or the west coast really add enough lanes to the highways to make a difference? The $1 million per mile cost of a highway also only includes construction costs, not the purchase of right of way. Face it most of the highway congestion is in and around the major metropolitan areas. The exact places were there isn't any more room to build highways.
As for bombing trains, usually that doesn't happen, it is much easier to derail one than bomb one. While that kills people, too, it is usually a lot fewer killed than people falling 35,000 feet.
Unless they can even prove it works in the Northeast corridor, where it most likely has the most benefit, why bother with anything else?
It's not exactly high speed rail. It's better than regular speed. But not dramatically. I think there are all sorts of right-of-way issues. Unless the country says: "I don't care what these issues are, just make them go away, and make this work", I don't think we should spend another penny.
It seems to work pretty well in the northeast and it's not even high speed. Just think what it would be like getting into New York without rail access. You couldn't build enough roads to handle the traffic. The sad part is in the 1920s and 30s, passenger trains averaged 100mph on bolted rail. That's about twice as fast as today.
Good way to combat the deficit! Government spending fixes everything!!
It's good to read that the executive branch is listening to the people..
Actually, in an environment where the middle glass does not have the purchasing power to fuel a recovery, most economists would agree that government spending fixes everything. The problem is that historically, that spending went into infrastructure like roads and schools and hospitals. Those things that are useful once the economy recovers. Now it goes to fight a war which might keep terrorists at bay (or might not) but does diddly squat for future economic growth.
So, actually, it's good to read that the executive branch is listening to people who know what they are talking about, like economists, and not just an angry electorate.
$53 billion over six years is chump change. We need to cut spending by $500 billion per year and raise taxes by $500 billion per year to maybe dig ourselves out of this hole in two decades. We can't simply stop spending altogether until we pay off the debt, so you can't go faulting every program that costs $9 billion per year for the debt problem.
Give the man credit, he did try to undo the Bush tax credits that allowed the top 1% of the country to go from 7% of the wealth to 23% of the wealth. Congress, when originally passing the cuts new they couldn't be sustained, which is why they had an expiration date.
Nefarious reason = Union Jobs and more federal employees to administer the program
Actually, those union railroad jobs relieve social security of a burden as they do not collect from it and as for federal employees, one airport has more federal employees than all of these high speed rail projects combined.
Easy. He'll raise taxes. Of course I'm sure this will make businesses love him, and the people too. Especially when your economic situation is very close to a depression style event.
Or, he can use some of the transportation tax (some people call it fuel tax) for something other than building new highways and airports. It costs the same to build a mile of interstate as it does to lay a mile of high speed track. However, even if trucks and cars got to an average of 100mpg they would still be less efficient than rail.
Besides, high speed rail isn't about displacing freight, it's about replacing air. There aren't too many places to build new airports and the current ones are pretty much at capacity (at least the major ones are). If you could move people by rail in approximately the same timeframe for only 20% of the cost, then why wouldn't you pursue it?
Afiact the real issue is that the freight companies own the lines and consider amtrak low priority. There are two ways to fix this, either move passenger traffic to it's own high speed lines or force a radical shakeup of the frieght companies operating priorities (I very much doubt they would do it voluntarily)
So it depends, will these be new lines (possibly parallel to existing lines) or will they be speed limit increases on existing lines?
Third choice - actually fund Amtrak appropriately so that it can pay the freight companies a bonus for on time arrivals for passenger trains. If freight companies make money when Amtrak is on time, they will give Amtrak priority.
I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country.
This isn't modded troll yet?
You're praising "emerging countries" for building superior rail lines by appropriating real estate and otherwise building where there is no existing infrastructure while the starvation and famine of their population takes a back seat?
Maybe those third world countries are following the4 examples of the US and other Western Countries that found out without a reliable transportation infrastructure, there is no way for the country to grow or get goods to those starving people. There is a reason why every mid-sized city and above west of St. Louis has/had rail lines. Those cities grew up around the railroad, not vice-versa.
Yes, I had a similar experience to you: The rail connection between San Diego and Los Angeles is also just a single track for part (most?) of the way. Two major cities not far apart and they can't even put in two tracks. As a European living in the US, I find this mindboggling. I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!
That's because in most parts of the country railroads are taxed on the amount of rail they have in use. That's why in the 70s and 80s most multi-line corridors were ripped up. For running freight, with modern signalling and communications, that works. But not for passengers. It makes me laugh every time I see a semi with a sticker on it that says something like "I pay $3,627 in highway taxes each year." Well, at $1million per mile to construct a highway that seems like a really good subsidy from the government.
If the US truly wants to have a transportation policy, they need to look beyond highways. If they want to have a real energy policy, they need to look to what is the most energy efficient means of moving goods and people.
And the lovely part of it is that other workers who are breaking the rules even more flagrantly are given a blind eye if they're not pissing off the management.
Selective enforcement is quite fun. Even more fortunate is that once your ex employee is thrown out of the office he loses access to the evidence he needs to prove any wrongdoing on your part.
That's why the notion of having some protection is ludicrous. There isn't such a thing as an employee who hasn't violated some rule -- every take a pen home, even accidently? Well, you've stolen company property. Every employee (at least non-union), in one way or another, serves at the discretion of management. Even whistleblowers, only have the appearance of protection under the law.
There are some companies that view their employees as a resource instead of a commodity, but they are few and far between.
So, a boss cannot ask an employee out on a date? That's really odd, because, there are numerous cases where "bosses" have married administrative assitants, secretaries and others in the company.
I know that I have picked an extreme example, but, exactly where do you draw the line on what is protected speech on facebook and what is not? And why single out facebook and not other media? According to the article, it is about the freedom to unionize and discuss work conditions. Hitting on an employee, even though I didn't say the boss did, would be related to discussing work conditions, would it not?
My point in all of this, and I am not supporting bosses hitting on their employees, is exactly where do you draw the line. Even the article states that it is quite blurred.
Of course that's crazy. The more reasonable solution, obviously, is to happily give your attorney your money in order to sue the guy for defamation. However, this only works if what the guy says is demonstrably false, so if you really are a moron* and what the guy says about your wife and your sex life really is true, you're SOL.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
* Wait, if he thinks you're a moron, you may still be SOL, no matter how non-moron you are. He can believe whatever he wants. It's if he starts spreading these lies as facts that you should start giving your attorney your money.
Other option, and what most businesses would do, is to look over the employee handbook and/or job description and write the employee up for any violation found. Then you have grounds for dismissal. Not at your desk at 8:00am -- you're tardy. Happens three times -- perpetual tardiness. Did you turn in leave slips for those times you were tardy? No, another violation. You're allowed one 15 minute break per 4 hours worked. Did you leave your desk more than once for non-work purpose (ie bathroom)? There you go, another infraction.
That way, you aren't firing them for what they posted, but for specific actions that are against policy.
Slashdot Mirror
You only say that because you don't need to get travel papers. Many countries, if you want to travel somewhere, you have to explain the purpose, the duration, what you will be doing and then they will decide if you get your papers. Since the TSA gropes few, your chances of being groped are minimal. On the otherhand, with the papers system, you will be harrassed each time you want to go more than 50 miles, even by car.
And yet, the first, first person shooters were developed by the military to desensitize soldiers into having to shoot another human being.
I don't know what state you live in or railroad you work for, but Amtrak negotiates with each railroad line for right away privileges. Congress mandates that the freight railroads must let Amtrak use their trackage, but does not specify how or when. That's why Amtrak relies on state subsidies along with their federal one. If states want Amtrak to be on time, they give Amtrak money to pay the freight road to bump the priority.
Face it, freight roads are in the business of making money by hauling freight. Amtrak cuts down on their capacity and therefore, unless the line is really underutilized, Amtrak gets low priority and must pay for increased priority. One only has to look at Amtrak's on-time figures over the years and compare it to what the payed out to the freight lines for those years, to see the effect.
While this is a good article and it was wrong of Fox News to sensationalize it, it still misses the point. Even the industry calls these types of games "Adult Games." Why are minors being allowed to purchase them? We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see. Why is it different with interactive media.
I'm not saying adults shouldn't be able to purchase games like this. Heck, even parents can purchase them and give them to their kids. But we have to be honest that the studies, show there is a correlation between violent media and increased aggression. Hopefully, most adults deal with that aggression in rational ways. However, the 12-17 YOs who are the real target of this genre don't have those coping mechanisms (they haven't finished forming in the brain).
Fox News shouldn't have done what they did, but at the same time, there are actual studies showing that violent media does affect children (same with pornography).
But the high speed rail proposals are not planned to be continental systems but specifically intercity, such as the northeast corridor. So we are talking distances similar to Japan, Germany and France, even though the US is significantly larger geographically.
I agree wholeheartedly, however, with your assessment of the freight system. It could be improved, however, if rail was used for all long distance freight and then highway used regionally.
Railroads do not participate in Social Security. As for bailing out corporate pension funds, all I can say is that it was the corporation that raided those funds, not the employees. As for the additional man-hours, well, the plan is for the government to build the infrastructure but private industry run the railroads.
But in the case reported, there was defamation of character (the case was more than I hate my boss). It seems that the department of labor has a different list. Actually, the article states as much in that it is a really big grey area now as to what is permitted and not permitted. Also, the ruling dealt just with social networks, so technically, newspapers, email, blogs, etc. are still up in the air.
I have an idea! Maybe if the TSA stopped molesting people, air travel would be more pleasant, and you wouldn't have to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on passenger trains. Just an idea, I don't live in the States so I'm not sure how much you like being groped by goons with a badge just so that you can visit your parents.
Yeah, we can do like a lot of other countries do, you need travel papers to move from region to region. That would go over really well in the US.
We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.
I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of this economic situation with something actually useful, or at least actually inspiring(like a Mars mission we can just fake if we don't make it).
You mean like the upfront $5billion it costs to build one airport (Denver Int'l cost in 1997) or the $200million it costs to operate just that one airport for a year? In today's money, it would cost about $10billion to build that airport or 20% of the cost for the whole high speed rail proposal. For that same $10billion, 10,000 miles of rail can be put into service.
As for the rest of your example, exactly how did the UPS guy get the goods to deliver to you? They most likely came by long haul truck or air. So, in a few years, when a barrel of oil is over $200 and a gallon of diesel fuel is $8 and jet fuel even more? How much will that local UPS delivery cost you? The only reason rail isn't used more, right now, is because fuel is relatively cheap. Therefore, the efficiency of the delivery system is not a critical factor. Once fuel becomes expensive, then things like rail, which are very efficient per ton moved, will be a no-brainer. Of course, you need to build the infrastructure today, to have it ready for tomorrow.
I hate the assumption that the US having bases overseas is bad for US security. Its great for security, and its money well spent.
I really hope I don't live to see it, but there will be another big war someday, and we better fucking hope we still have massive projectable military might, or we might wind up in a situation that modern 1st world citizens simply cant comprehend.
The poster of the comment didn't actually say to close foreign bases, but do we really need a Coast Guard base in the State of Kansas? And if there is another world war, it won't be fought with today's soldiers or technology (unless its in the near future). It seems the US did a pretty good job of ramping up the military machine for WWII at a time when the country and the military was in shambles. Is there a reason why you would expect they wouldn't be able to do that again?
I agree completely. 75% of our population lives within 50 miles of the coast. There should be high speed rail from Seattle to San Diego (I-5 right of way) and from New York City to Miami. Spending money on rail in the Midwest is asinine.
Unless you want to go to Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver or St. Paul/Minneapolis or even New York to LA.
High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).
High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.
It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.
High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.
An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system. To replace planes you need it to be cheaper, safer, and actually faster. For driving locations you ou get: Boston, New York City, Chicago, and (so I'm told) Washington DC, Portland, and San Fransisco. Is there anywhere else? Where would it replace airports?
That might be true for China, I don't know. I do know that Japan, Germany and France all have airports and seemed to go the high speed rail route. Either they are all stupid, or we are. As for more efficient, air travel for people and freight is one of the least efficient means of travel. It may be the fastest, but it's not very efficient and that's not including the cost of the infrastructure like airports and planes.
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes. So the speed gain would only show up in a few very specific cases, like maybe LA to Vegas.
Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure? Or not spending it at all?
53 billion will provide 53,000 new miles of roads. Exactly where are you going to put those new miles? Could the northeast corrider or the west coast really add enough lanes to the highways to make a difference? The $1 million per mile cost of a highway also only includes construction costs, not the purchase of right of way. Face it most of the highway congestion is in and around the major metropolitan areas. The exact places were there isn't any more room to build highways.
As for bombing trains, usually that doesn't happen, it is much easier to derail one than bomb one. While that kills people, too, it is usually a lot fewer killed than people falling 35,000 feet.
Unless they can even prove it works in the Northeast corridor, where it most likely has the most benefit, why bother with anything else?
It's not exactly high speed rail. It's better than regular speed. But not dramatically. I think there are all sorts of right-of-way issues. Unless the country says: "I don't care what these issues are, just make them go away, and make this work", I don't think we should spend another penny.
It seems to work pretty well in the northeast and it's not even high speed. Just think what it would be like getting into New York without rail access. You couldn't build enough roads to handle the traffic. The sad part is in the 1920s and 30s, passenger trains averaged 100mph on bolted rail. That's about twice as fast as today.
Good way to combat the deficit! Government spending fixes everything!!
It's good to read that the executive branch is listening to the people..
Actually, in an environment where the middle glass does not have the purchasing power to fuel a recovery, most economists would agree that government spending fixes everything. The problem is that historically, that spending went into infrastructure like roads and schools and hospitals. Those things that are useful once the economy recovers. Now it goes to fight a war which might keep terrorists at bay (or might not) but does diddly squat for future economic growth.
So, actually, it's good to read that the executive branch is listening to people who know what they are talking about, like economists, and not just an angry electorate.
$53 billion over six years is chump change. We need to cut spending by $500 billion per year and raise taxes by $500 billion per year to maybe dig ourselves out of this hole in two decades. We can't simply stop spending altogether until we pay off the debt, so you can't go faulting every program that costs $9 billion per year for the debt problem.
Give the man credit, he did try to undo the Bush tax credits that allowed the top 1% of the country to go from 7% of the wealth to 23% of the wealth. Congress, when originally passing the cuts new they couldn't be sustained, which is why they had an expiration date.
Nefarious reason = Union Jobs and more federal employees to administer the program
Actually, those union railroad jobs relieve social security of a burden as they do not collect from it and as for federal employees, one airport has more federal employees than all of these high speed rail projects combined.
Easy. He'll raise taxes. Of course I'm sure this will make businesses love him, and the people too. Especially when your economic situation is very close to a depression style event.
Or, he can use some of the transportation tax (some people call it fuel tax) for something other than building new highways and airports. It costs the same to build a mile of interstate as it does to lay a mile of high speed track. However, even if trucks and cars got to an average of 100mpg they would still be less efficient than rail.
Besides, high speed rail isn't about displacing freight, it's about replacing air. There aren't too many places to build new airports and the current ones are pretty much at capacity (at least the major ones are). If you could move people by rail in approximately the same timeframe for only 20% of the cost, then why wouldn't you pursue it?
Afiact the real issue is that the freight companies own the lines and consider amtrak low priority. There are two ways to fix this, either move passenger traffic to it's own high speed lines or force a radical shakeup of the frieght companies operating priorities (I very much doubt they would do it voluntarily)
So it depends, will these be new lines (possibly parallel to existing lines) or will they be speed limit increases on existing lines?
Third choice - actually fund Amtrak appropriately so that it can pay the freight companies a bonus for on time arrivals for passenger trains. If freight companies make money when Amtrak is on time, they will give Amtrak priority.
I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country.
This isn't modded troll yet?
You're praising "emerging countries" for building superior rail lines by appropriating real estate and otherwise building where there is no existing infrastructure while the starvation and famine of their population takes a back seat?
Maybe those third world countries are following the4 examples of the US and other Western Countries that found out without a reliable transportation infrastructure, there is no way for the country to grow or get goods to those starving people. There is a reason why every mid-sized city and above west of St. Louis has/had rail lines. Those cities grew up around the railroad, not vice-versa.
Yes, I had a similar experience to you: The rail connection between San Diego and Los Angeles is also just a single track for part (most?) of the way. Two major cities not far apart and they can't even put in two tracks. As a European living in the US, I find this mindboggling. I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!
That's because in most parts of the country railroads are taxed on the amount of rail they have in use. That's why in the 70s and 80s most multi-line corridors were ripped up. For running freight, with modern signalling and communications, that works. But not for passengers. It makes me laugh every time I see a semi with a sticker on it that says something like "I pay $3,627 in highway taxes each year." Well, at $1million per mile to construct a highway that seems like a really good subsidy from the government.
If the US truly wants to have a transportation policy, they need to look beyond highways. If they want to have a real energy policy, they need to look to what is the most energy efficient means of moving goods and people.
And the lovely part of it is that other workers who are breaking the rules even more flagrantly are given a blind eye if they're not pissing off the management.
Selective enforcement is quite fun. Even more fortunate is that once your ex employee is thrown out of the office he loses access to the evidence he needs to prove any wrongdoing on your part.
That's why the notion of having some protection is ludicrous. There isn't such a thing as an employee who hasn't violated some rule -- every take a pen home, even accidently? Well, you've stolen company property. Every employee (at least non-union), in one way or another, serves at the discretion of management. Even whistleblowers, only have the appearance of protection under the law.
There are some companies that view their employees as a resource instead of a commodity, but they are few and far between.
Do you offer more breaks in Texas? I thought that was a federal law.
So, a boss cannot ask an employee out on a date? That's really odd, because, there are numerous cases where "bosses" have married administrative assitants, secretaries and others in the company.
I know that I have picked an extreme example, but, exactly where do you draw the line on what is protected speech on facebook and what is not? And why single out facebook and not other media? According to the article, it is about the freedom to unionize and discuss work conditions. Hitting on an employee, even though I didn't say the boss did, would be related to discussing work conditions, would it not?
My point in all of this, and I am not supporting bosses hitting on their employees, is exactly where do you draw the line. Even the article states that it is quite blurred.
Of course that's crazy. The more reasonable solution, obviously, is to happily give your attorney your money in order to sue the guy for defamation. However, this only works if what the guy says is demonstrably false, so if you really are a moron* and what the guy says about your wife and your sex life really is true, you're SOL.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
* Wait, if he thinks you're a moron, you may still be SOL, no matter how non-moron you are. He can believe whatever he wants. It's if he starts spreading these lies as facts that you should start giving your attorney your money.
Other option, and what most businesses would do, is to look over the employee handbook and/or job description and write the employee up for any violation found. Then you have grounds for dismissal. Not at your desk at 8:00am -- you're tardy. Happens three times -- perpetual tardiness. Did you turn in leave slips for those times you were tardy? No, another violation. You're allowed one 15 minute break per 4 hours worked. Did you leave your desk more than once for non-work purpose (ie bathroom)? There you go, another infraction.
That way, you aren't firing them for what they posted, but for specific actions that are against policy.